……….and Containers

Our top 10 veg for growing in containers are:

1. Beans Beans Beans. French, runner or broad, climbling or dwarf, they all thrive in a pot and are very, very productive.

2. Tomatoes. You grow them in a growbag, now grow them in a planter.

3. Potatoes. There's been a revolution in potato growing thanks to a rather unassuming polypropylene bag.

4. Salad. It'll grow in any old container but looks best in a wicker planter!

5. Herbs. Of course, the original patio crop.

6. Strawberries. Superb in a hanging basket.

7. Spinach & Chard. Just keep sowing or planting for successional crops from early spring through to late autumn.

8. Carrots. Carrots?? If your planter is shallow, use baby round carrots or if a little deeper you can grow chantenay.

9. Spring onions. Happy as larry in anything that can hold compost and is deeper than a teacup.

10. Courgettes. Keep feeding!

If you are short of space, only have a patio or yard or maybe even just a balcony or windowsill, then you have little other choice than to grow vegetables in raised beds, pots or troughs. Even if you have plenty of space, you might consider some salad leaves, herbs, beans or tomatoes growing in planters conveniently sited near the kitchen door.
There are lots of advantages to growing vegetables in raised beds or in containers. No digging to do, no build up of soil pests and diseases, minimal weeding as the closeness of the plants suppresses the weeds and you can guarantee the quality of the soil as you will be using fresh compost. Although you can pretty much grow any veg in containers or raised beds, it is advisable to use varieties which crop quickly or produce smaller sized veg than normal varieties. Thompson and Morgan’s Kew Urban Garden Collection is a handy range of seeds specifically tailored to container growing. See our Veg Seeds for Containers section for a selection of veg seeds suitable for container growing.
Raised beds are available in different sizes, in handy kit form either traditional Wooden Raised Beds, or rot-proof Plastic Raised Beds. Fill your raised bed with a mixture of 2 parts soil to one part Farmyard Manure and allow to settle for a few weeks before planting. Our VegGrower Organic Topsoil Mix is ideally blended for the job and can also add in some sand or grit to aid drainage. You need to leave a few weeks between adding in the compost and sowing or planting to allow the soil to settle.
Raised beds should ideally run from North to South and you should leave enough room between them to walk through so you do not have to walk over the beds themselves. Pathways between beds should have weed control membrane put down and bark or gravel put on top to stop any weeds.
Vegetables sowed or planted in raised beds are grown closer together than in the conventional plot. The following veg crops can be planted at these distances apart:

Broad Beans, French Beans – 6”
Beetroot – 3”
Broccoli – 15”
Carrot – 4”
Courgette – 18”
Kale – 15”
Lettuce – 9”
Onion – 3”
Potato – 12”
Radish – 2”
Tomato – 18”
Turnip – 6”

Vegetables can also be grown in veg planters, pots, troughs, hanging baskets and grow bags to create your own patio allotment. Any pot deeper than 8” will probably suffice although our range of Potato Planters & Veg Planters have been designed specifically for different crops. The advantage of planter bags over other containers is that they can be easily washed and stored flat after harvesting if not being used over the winter.
Bush tomatoes can be grown in tomato planter bags and truss type tomatoes can be grown in Climbing Tomato planters which have an integral support for the developing plant. You can also grow cucumbers in this type of planter, assisting the plant to grow upwards rather than trailing on the floor. Similiarly, pea and bean planters come either with a frame for the crop to scramble up or pockets in which support canes can be easily inserted.
There are also a number of general veg growing planters available which you treat like a raised bed in that you can grow different vegetables together in the same container. Don’t assume that you cannot grow root crops in planters as carrots, beetroot and potatoes are all happy to grow in a patio planter, as long as it is deep enough. Carrot Planters are designed to be the appropriate depth for growing carrots successfully on the patio.
Potatoes make an excellent patio crop as they can be planted in Potato Planter Bags or in a Potato Barrel for simple cultivation and harvesting. Potato bags take around 5 seed potatoes each so why not try buying several planters and trying different varieties in each one? For this type of cultivation, you should choose early or salad potato varieties.
Simply line the bottom 6” of the container with potting compost and plant the seed potato just below this. As the new stems start to grow, add more compost to cover most of the foliage and continue to do this as the plant grows until the container is full. Make sure you water them regularly, particularly in dry weather. This is true of all vegetables growing in containers, as they cannot draw moisture from a large area unlike vegetable plants in the conventional plot, it is important to water regularly to keep the compost slightly moist.
Hanging baskets are ideal for planting different crops if you short of space. Use multi purpose compost and make sure there are holes for drainage in the bottom. Tumbling tomatoes and strawberries are both ideal candidates. You can also try herbs, salad leaves, melons (the developing fruit will need support to stop it dropping off when it starts to get heavy so use some netting to hold the fruit in place) and mini cucumbers.
Growbags are ideal for tomatoes, cucumbers, courgettes and melons both inside the greenhouse or on the patio. There are a number of handy devices on the market to support growbag crops such as growbag frames which hold the canes to grow crops up, Growbag Watering Kits such as the Big Drippa or GrowTube. You can also turn a growbag on it’s side and grow carrots in it!